


The One True King

by agatharights



Category: Godzilla (2014), Godzilla: King Of The Monsters
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Godzilla's POV, King of the Monsters, Scene from the movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 14:05:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19152547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agatharights/pseuds/agatharights
Summary: The King remembers other times, and fealty is sworn, even if they do not know it yet.





	The One True King

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, watching Serizawa drag a nuke up a flight of ancient stairs against a backdrop of lava was about as close as I've gotten to a religious experience so of course I had to do something for it. Based off speculation about Godzilla and ancient humans' relationship.

He has come here to sleep for so long. It is not the only den he has, and it is so very far from the first, for he was digging his own dens since before the first humans ever thought to tame fire, but he has come here often. There is uncertainty if fondness is a facet of his vast and strange mind, alien to mankind but so very natural to this world, but it is a preferred den. The very lifeblood of the earth itself pouring so nearby, the energy he needs to replenish his body oozing from the core of the world. It is a slow process, but he is already halfway into the deep, healing sleep of a titan, a healing sleep that may last decades, if not centuries.

A healing sleep that could last millenia.

The knowledge is there, that if left unchecked, Ghidorah will reign free and he will awaken to a world devoid of all he’s known. Perhaps one he will be incapable of surviving in, or will be critically weakened. If Ghidorah reigns free, will he swear fealty when he wakes? Will he bow in submission, if he cannot fight? If bitterness or revenge are concepts he can hold, they sting deeply, though there is no language to describe them. There is so very little language at all.

He does not even have a name. Nor does Ghidorah, really. It only knows them as they are.

The sleep pulls at him, pulling his awareness further away, but he is fighting it rather than succumbing. There are many of them, sleeping. He has heard their calls, echoing through the oceans and carried on whalesong and through the tunnels that shoot through the uppermost crust of the planet. Many of them have not even awoken, not yet. They are crying out in their sleep, but even Ghidorah’s demands cannot stir them, yet. They will join those already woken before long, if the one who is many is not silenced.

Then there will only be fighting. There are some who would readily challenge a weakened Godzilla, and victory would not be certain.

Unacceptable.

There is movement, he smells it in the stirring of the hot air first, senses something-a kernel of power, restrained and waiting to be unleashed. The human is so tiny, so fragile- but the king remembers. He remembers when humans would walk these stairs in crowds so dense one could not see the ground beneath them, their tiny, warbling voices singing to him. It is so strange to see a human here, now, that he almost dismisses it entirely.

But it is staggering. Humans alone are fragile, weak things. But a mass of them...even he has something akin to marveling, having watched them. They were once completely ignorable, another odd ape, scavenging across grasslands and forest and unknown to him. But when he’d woken, once...like termites building their citadels, they’d covered portions of the world in stonework and wood, they’d carved the face of the planet in their image. And then he’d woke again, and their brimming hives of stone and wood were now of metal and glass, smelling of ozone and power.

This human will die here. It will die soon. The energy that sustains him will boil away a human’s life, break them apart on the finest of levels- not that he understands that, but he knows that if the heat does not kill the human, the radiation will. And still, it’s narrow arms, wrapped in material, are carrying more of that very death with it.

And the king remembers.

Remembers humans marching up the steps to drums and song, pleasantly rhythmic, remembers when he would lay his mass here, upon this stone plateau to watch them. There was an understanding, then, though what the humans knew of him he could not comprehend and did not care. They carried baskets laden high with offerings- pouring gold and jewels before him, wagons of fish and freshly-slaughtered aurochs. Even if he seldom hungered for the meat, it was pleasant and familiar in his gullet. They would swarm like a single thing- if Ghidorah had a name it was the one who was many, the three minds made one, but there was no greater one-who-was-many than the humans. The many who were one.

There is no pounding drums here, no chanting and no shrill singing. The air is not perfumed with countless plucked flowers or ripened fruits, but with smoke and fire. The human places down the silver cone- and Godzilla recognizes the point of a weapon in it. He has been the target of such things, before, and they have done little to wound him. The human has lain it’s sword before him, it’s blade, by any other standard.

It is difficult to keep his eyes open, his awareness instead through the air currents, through the drift of energy through the room, but he still watches as the human approaches him as none have. Not since this place was higher, before it sank below the surface entirely. Not since the painted priests walked these stairs, when they would carve his likeness into the stone for reasons he did not understand but that bought him back again and again.

He cannot feel the human’s hand on him, but he senses it through other means.

And he remembers, and he knows.

The other Titans would croon or bend low before him, they would sing submission and back away, abandon their territory while he was alpha over them. This was how humans had always done the same- social creatures, of the many rather than the singular, and they offered loyalty through offerings, through a connection that they shared.

They will die, too, if Ghidorah has his way.

But this one has sworn fealty, with it’s own short life. He can barely hear, much less comprehend the gentle warbling of it’s voice, but it’s tiny, dark eyes look up at him with reverence, and for what little he does understand of the gesture, it is not lost. He closes heavy, armored eyelids- and even through them, he can see the light that fills the cavern.

He is not sad to lose his den, the radioactive flow and lava will still be there, even if the cliff walls and stairs will not be. Even if the mosaics of his likeness are blasted into fused glass and burned stone. Mourning is an emotion beyond him for such simple things, and right now he knows of a few simple truths.

He is alive. He is glutted with power. And he is rising towards the surface with strength he has not felt in so very, very long. Humans are small, fragile, so they have created shells to hide in, to make themselves larger, and this one has not gone far. He rises, and sees their tiny forms moving, shifting, soaked with seawater and stinking of fear.

And he smells the human who was so bold as to reach for him, to touch his hide, on them. It is a faint smell, but he can smell a drop of blood in an ocean, better than any shark or carrion bird. They are looking up at him- but they are not screaming, they are not running, scared as they are they are expectant above all else. There is no language between them that could suffice, so he throws his head to the sky and proclaims their alliance sound. The other Titans are made blind with rage at Ghidorah’s call, but any who could hear would know.

The first of Godzilla’s subjects to return to him have been the humans, of all things. The unsleeping, unceasing hoard. He cannot guess if they will understand what they have promised, but he knows- he remembers that they will fight by him, and that humans will go to their deaths in the same droves that an ant colony workers and warriors will, for him. For the world they share.

The king has returned.

And he will not allows the pretender’s slight to go unpunished. This time he will not be content to leave Ghidorah to die, to suffocate under the ice. This time he will devour every last shred of the beast.

He can hear Mothra singing. It is time to go.

The humans will follow their king, their ancient god, as they always have, now that they remember.


End file.
